Robert Montgomery Bird: Writer and Artist

Depicting the Region

The privileged nineteenth-century American's
experience of the sublime in the landscape occurred on the heights. The
characteristic viewpoint of contemporary American landscapists traced a
visual trajectory from the uplands to a scenic panorama below. . . . The
experience on the heights and its literary and aesthetic translation
became assimilated to popular culture and remained and continues to remain
a fundamental component of the national dream. As such, it is
inseparable from nationalist ideology. . . . [T]here is an American
viewpoint in landscape painting that can be identified with this
characteristic line of vision . . . [;] this peculiar gaze represents not
only a visual line of sight but an ideological one as well. . . . [The]
view from the summit metaphorically undercut the past and blazed a trail
into the wilderness for 'the abodes of commerce and the seats of
manufactures.'"